Push Myanmar to open its doors

As elections in 2011 (and a bye-election in 2012) have both ratified and subtly altered the consequences of three decades of military rule in Myanmar, formerly (and to many nationalists, still) called Burma, it's time to take a fresh look at the country which our Prime Minister has just visited.

When the generals in Rangoon (now Yangon) suppressed the popular uprising of 1988, overturned the results of a free election overwhelmingly won by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), shot students and arrested the new democratically elected leaders, leaving NLD leaders and party workers a choice of incarceration or exile, the Government of India initially reacted as most Indians would have wanted it to.

Policy

India gave asylum to fleeing students, allowed them to operate their resistance movement on the Indian side of the border (with some financial help from New Delhi) and supported a newspaper and a radio station that propagated the democratic voice. For many years, India was unambiguously on the side of democracy, freedom and human rights in Burma - and in ways more tangible than the rhetoric of the regime's Western critics.

But then reality intruded. India's strategic rivals, China and Pakistan, began to cultivate the Burmese generals. Major economic and geopolitical concessions were offered to both suitors. The Chinese even began developing a port on the Burmese coast, far closer to Calcutta than to Canton. And the generals of the SLORC junta, well aware of the utility of what comes out of the barrel of a gun, began providing safe havens and arms to a motley assortment of anti-New Delhi rebel movements that would wreak havoc in the north-eastern states of India and retreat to sanctuaries in the newly renamed Myanmar.

This was troubling enough to policymakers in New Delhi, who were being painfully reminded of their own vulnerabilities. The two countries share a 1600-kilometre land border and a longer maritime boundary with overlapping economic zones in the strategically crucial Bay of Bengal. Four of India's politically sensitive north-eastern states have international borders with Myanmar.

But the clincher came when large deposits of natural gas were found in Burma, which it was clear would not be available to an India deemed hostile to the junta. India realised that its rivals were gaining ground in Delhi's own backyard while New Delhi was losing out on new economic opportunities. The price of pursuing a moral foreign policy simply became too high.

So New Delhi turned 180 degrees. The increasingly forlorn resistance operations from Indian soil were shut down in the hope of reciprocation from the Burmese side. And New Delhi sweetened the Burmese generals' tea for them by providing both military assistance and intelligence support to their regime in their never-ending battles against their own rebels.

India's journey was complete: from standing up for democracy, New Delhi had gone on to aiding and enabling the objectives of the military regime. When monks were being mowed down on the streets of Yangon in 2006, the Indian government called for negotiations, muttered banalities about national reconciliation and opposed sanctions.

Change

New Delhi also sent its oil minister to negotiate an energy deal, making it clear the country's real priorities lay with its own national economic interests, ahead of its solidarity with Burmese democrats.

India does not have the luxury of distance from Myanmar; there is also the strategic imperative of not ceding ground to India's enemies on its own borders. As I wrote at the time, India's policy was made with its head rather than its heart, but in the process we had lost a little bit of our soul.

And yet, paradoxically, the gradual opening up of Myanmar following the 2011 elections and the installation of a general-turned-civilian, Thien Sein, as president, may offer New Delhi some measure of vindication. As the new regime released political prisoners, permitted freedom of movement to the detained Aung San Suu Kyi, allowing her to contest and win a by-election, India's Western critics began grudgingly to acknowledge that genuine change might well be on the way. The cancellation of a $3.6-billion Chinese-built hydroelectric project, 90 per cent of whose electricity would have been exported to China, sent a clear signal: Myanmar is not a vassal state, and is willing to diversify its foreign relations.

Aung San Suu Kyi's victory offers a glimmer of hope that the fledgling political process in Myanmar could yet be used by its democrats to create something resembling a genuine democracy.

Interests

There is no doubt that the country's military rulers are cynically hoping to use her participation in the parliamentary process to bolster the illusion of freedom while continuing to exert real control over what goes on in their country.

While China has always been much more comfortable dealing with an uncompromising military regime which could be guaranteed to uphold its interests, India's embrace of the junta has always been a more reluctant one, based on the compulsions of a common geography rather than the affinities of shared ideals. It is telling that India's Tri-services Command on the Andaman Islands abuts Myanmar's maritime boundaries and is just about 20 kilometres away from Myanmar's Coco Islands, where China is believed to be building naval infrastructure.

It is in Myanmar's interests to have more than one suitor wooing it; offsetting one neighbour against another is a time-honoured practice. Though China's engagement dwarfs India's, Myanmar-India bilateral trade reached $1.071 billion in 2010-11, including India's purchase of 70 per cent of Myanmar's exported agricultural produce, and India is now Myanmar's fourth largest trading partner after Thailand, Singapore and China. India's privileged relationship with the junta in Naypyidaw also allowed it quicker humanitarian access than the United Nations and other international relief agencies enjoyed following the devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis in May 2008.

Economics can always open the door to politics. The visit of our Prime Minister this week brought confirmation that India has been playing a quiet but effective role in promoting greater engagement with Naypyidaw. The stage is set for the region's democracies, especially India, to open Burma's windows to the world. China will be watching closely.